Sign of the Times

Part of putting down roots at Yahoo is finding out how to get things done and who to talk to for what. I've been a huge fan of MyBlogLog and was psyched when they decided to join Yahoo. Once they got here, I hung out at their offices and took it upon myself to make sure they were getting settled. Long story short, we dug hanging out together and I'm happy to say that I'm now part of the team as the Product Manager.

Most of my work is behind the scenes. Coordinating with other teams at Yahoo, pointing out internal tools that the team can use, important stuff like casting the tie-breaker vote on where to go for lunch.

As a small team, we're not big on slick marketing campaigns and prefer to let the community speak for itself. If you visit MyBlogLog central, you'll see that we're not big on office decoration either. Our only decoration to speak of is a vase of flowers that I think were sent as a gift but is now a petrified reminder of someone's kindness. We share office space with a number of hip designers and information architects at the Yahoo Research Labs in Berkeley and they suspicious of our lack of decorative flair.

So when colleague Jeffery Bennett offered to print out our logo on a massive plotter, paste it to some fiber board and carefully trace our "cursed curved fonts" with an x-acto knife, we jumped at the offer. Secretly I think Jeff's motivation was so he could tag us in meatspace (he took the photo on this post too) but with the simple addition of this sign, hanging by two strands of twine from Eric's truck, we coalesced as a team and made our space our own.

So that's me in the picture above, in the back, pointing to our new sign and, figuratively, this is what I hope to contribute. Simple signs pointing to where people can find the things they need to help themselves to make MyBlogLog an extension of themselves. Looking forward to working with all of you on making the web a little more personal.

Comments

[Tsewang Rinzin]

I am glad you guys didn't merge with Google. I am tired of seeing google taking over everything they see has a great potential. Their recent buy out of feedburner sucks.

If possible, I would like to see MyBlogLog profile getting sync with Yahoo Answers, at least to some extent (if not completely). I have already seen some of the Yahoo article sections using MBL widget. Kudos to MBL and Yahoo for that.

[Ian Kennedy]

Thanks - all sorts of great thinking going on here. We're looking forward to getting our ducks in a row to use Yahoo authentication which will present all sorts of interesting options. Keep the ideas coming!

[ToddSampson]

Ian -- You are far too modest my man. But thanks for the great first blog post.

[Cody Simms]

MBL team + Ian Kennedy = even more awesome!
:)

[Greg Cohn]

tagged!

[Andrew Kaplan]

Someone on LinkedIn (power forum)...just pointed out a Robyn siting in the photo...

Hi Robyn

Andy Kaplan
www.mediamensch.com
www.ewarrior.com

[Ian Kennedy]

Yep, the entire team is there. From the left rear we have:

Todd Sampson, co-founder and US National Soccer team fanboy
Ian Kennedy, Product Manager and bon vivant
Steve Ho, DB guru and WRX driver
John Sampson, CSS wizard and Todd's brother
Robyn Tippns, Community Mom and blogger ninja
Chris Goffinet, black belt optimizer and proud owner of an iPhone
Eric Marcoullier, co-founder and Chief Rock Star

[Eric Marcoullier]

Love you guys! *sniff*

[Zubli Zainordin]

This I believe Ian, individualization. Some prefer personalization. I ask, what about perdaughternization? The choice of words may differ, yet what we mean is the same, in the MyBlogLog spirit, of course. Nice posting, and I say there are now 3 individuals with 4 pointings at the MyBlogLog logo - yours, two by Eric, and one not in picture...me.